“Nightmares tend to suggest that we are needing to deal with something that generates fear in our self,” says psychotherapist Jeffrey Sumber, who studied global dream mythology at Harvard University and Jungian dream interpretation at the Jung Institute in Zurich, in an interview with Psych Central. “They can also be a way to release these fears, depending on how we respond to the dream itself.”

Sumber says that not dealing with nightmares can make the road to moving past them difficult. And for just reason.

“If I have a terrible nightmare, and I try to forget it as soon as I wake up because it was so traumatic, it is likely it will recur because I am not using the dream material to learn and grow. Nightmares are rarely prescriptive, meaning they are not signs that something bad will happen,” Sumber tells Psych Central. “On the other hand, nightmares exist to shake us up so that we spring into action by confronting the root fear, addressing the anxiety…Nightmares are a natural response to fear and anxiety and while they don’t feel very good in the moment, they are releasing pressure for our psyche to operate with less anxiety.”

Sumber says that nightmares are a chance to address fears. He says that this can be done with a few simple, self-directed questions.

“Ask yourself: “’What am I afraid of?’ ‘What does this dream suggest about me right now?’ ‘What can I do to learn more about the root fear that this nightmare reveals?’” he says.

Theories aside, scientific researchers have tried to understand just what causes these dreams. And what they’ve found is nothing short of fascinating.

According to Psychology Today, relatively recent research has investigated disturbed dreaming to understand the triggers behind them and attempted to differentiate between bad dreams and nightmares.